It was a successful day, shoe-wise. You have a learning curve, I have quantum leaps. I’m glad I carefully explained that to Alfredo, who patiently let me make all the mistakes on his equipment. Today he was mildly impressed by the quality of a few things I did, bearing in mind I still have a huge way to go. I just found out the correct way to dye shoe leather, which I used to do with my dance shoes. (Yep, I really was a dance instructor.)The shop is full of shoes that people never came back for. I get first dibs, but my size 8-1/2 feet turn out not to be a common item in the recycle bin. Most of the shoes seem to be size 11 or greater. Logic says either people with my foot size either always pick up their shoes or in the alternative, never have them repaired. Which theory you adopt depends more on your personality than mine.
You know the blog rule says I must record anything that happened in the superlative, and today coffee was on sale for $2.99, less than ever since I arrived. Bicycle or not, I carried five boxes of it home. It is another one of those things we never run out of around here. Which reminds me, it is time to stock up again. Never wait for hurricane season.
Music. By trial and error, the Ernie Ball volume pedal is repaired. I got around a year out of it before it started to crackle too loudly for stage work. I remember when it was a good brand name and I was expecting it to last virtually forever. Wallace and I looked at it, tested it, tried everything and concluded it must be an internal problem. It was. I noticed a tiny gap in the rheostat housing and got a glob of WD40 in there. Presto!
Pudding-Tat has been feasting. A week back, I noticed those eentsy tins of meat spread were cheaper than cat food, so I put some in her dish. She won’t touch it. Brainiac here did not buy any of her favorite just in case. So she gets tuna and chicken until I make a special trip to the grocery. She’s not complaining.
Actually, there are a couple things I should record about the change of diet for the household as well. We now pay a lot of intention to how much salt is contained in all items, since at least half of our average meals contain some form of prepared products (known to contain salts). We are neither vegans or health-freaks, but it plain became time to heed the warnings. It turns out we actually like turkey bacon and Wallace is going to try unsalted butter.
Of course I know that today’s blog is not terribly exciting. That is a major hazard of working for a living. One of my biggest beefs about a job has always been how it causes the lack of variation in many people’s mind-sets. The day-in day-out routine produces routine people, something I am not known to willfully associate with. One of my earliest experiences with this factor was a garage door factory I worked at one summer before joining the phone company. Not being a TV addict, it was so amusing to hear all my co-workers suddenly start using the same expression one day. The word “gnarly” comes to mind.
Author's note: 2015-06-24: what I'm saying here is that as a non-TV watcher, I'm very quick to spot the connection whenever people around me all start doing or saying the same thing at once. Most people may consider me out of the loop over it, but remember that living most people's lives would bore the shit out of me on day one.
Allow me to reiterate my feelings on work for anyone who missed them the first time around. My philosophy is that you should only work to get ahead, you should never work for a living. I was programmed to work for the wrong reasons, but I got out of that dead end route (it took 19 years) and so can anybody with a half a brain. It starts by losing your credit cards and (this is important) beginning to associate with others who wouldn’t have one. You’ll find you may have to “lower” your standards to associate with people who drive used cars and refuse to spend $200 on a concert ticket, but the benefits will accrue. It should be easy to detect that I just spent a day working instead of living, but remember you, I am also the expert at spotting the dull routine in others. It’s a talent best described as gnarly.
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